


The Subtle Gate

by Tyellas



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, Terminator (Movies), Terminator: Dark Fate
Genre: Crossover, Daemons, Drama, F/F, Gen, I tagged for the relationship, Other, Prompt Fill, Pugsley the iguana, Same-Sex Daemons, Taco the dog, though it's happening with the daemons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-13
Updated: 2020-01-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:28:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22245610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tyellas/pseuds/Tyellas
Summary: A fill for the Terminator: Dark Fate Prompt Meme: someone wanted a crossover withHis Dark Materials.Sarah throws ice over Grace inTerminator: Dark Fate- and what happens next is watched over by three daemons. As Dani goes out for chips and an important decision, two daemons make a connection.
Relationships: Grace Harper/Dani Ramos
Comments: 10
Kudos: 68
Collections: Terminator: Dark Fate Prompt Meme





	The Subtle Gate

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [Terminator_Dark_Fate_Prompts](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Terminator_Dark_Fate_Prompts) collection. 



> **Prompt:**  
>  A set of possible crossover prompts....This was a great set of prompts! This fill is for this specific one of these crossovers:  
> 2\. Terminator: Dark Fate meets His Dark Materials. Any length, any focus, but hey, multiverse permits for it and I'm really interested in what people's daemons could be, how the Magesterium might be involved in Legion's development, or other possible spin-offs on the universe of HDM. 
> 
> It's a short fill but I hope you enjoy it - it's got three crucial daemons!

Too close to Mexico City, in a flyspecked motel room, they had all stood by and watched. Sarah threw ice over an unconscious person on the bed, improvised an injection. She was only conscious of one of her watchers, the young woman named Dani. After a snappy exchange with Dani, Sarah said, “Now, we wait.”

There were also three daemons.

Dani’s daemon would have been able to dash down the street outside, unnoticed. He matched Mexico’s mid-sized street dogs, save for his clean, soft coat, white with golden-ginger patches over his back and one ear. Taco paced back and forth between Dani and the figure on the bed. “Will she be all right?” Taco was not asking Dani. He was hoping for an answer from the other two daemons.

Taco got it. “Course she will, kiddo. I see it all the time. Mom goes up against a Terminator, Terminator goes down. You and Dani are gonna be fine if you listen to Mom more. Just stick with us.”

Taco wagged his tail at Pugsley. The crusty iguana, once green, aged to gray, had the same cunning eyes as his human, Sarah. Humans weren’t very good at seeing their daemons, the spirit-creatures that connected their souls to the world. But Pugsley had such a tight bond with Sarah that the human was almost aware of her daemon. She picked up Pugsley’s cues, muttered asides for him. Maybe it made Sarah look strange to other humans, but Taco admired it. It showed that, awful as the pair were, they could really care.

“Thank you. But I meant the other…one. Grace.”

“The freak.” Both daemons eyed the unconscious human on the bed. Grace was from another time – maybe another world. Under her skin, she was full of metal, electricity, strangeness. One of those things had to be why she _really_ saw daemons. With Taco, she’d held out a hand for Taco to sniff, checked that he was there after the awful fights. Grace hadn't said anything about this to Sarah or Dani.

“Mom’s got it under control. Unlike your kid. But I’ll check Blondie out for you.” Pugsley ate one of Sarah’s cigarette butts first. “Christ, I need a tequila.” The solid old lizard grappled up the bedding, skirted the ice cubes, and stopped. Grace’s daemon blocked Pugsley’s way. The golden eagle arced her wings and screamed at the iguana.

Pugsley didn’t blink. “My human’s the one who has her shit together here, Big Bird. You would’ve blinked out by now if it wasn’t for her.”

The golden eagle screamed again, feinted with a claw. Pugsley scuttered back. “Jesus, fine. What was your name again? Jack-in-the-box?”

The golden eagle huffed her feathers. “Aurembiax.”

Pugsley hissed slightly. “Funny name for a girl. You’re all kinds of wrong, you know that?”

Taco knew what Pugsley meant. Aurembiax was a female daemon – with a female human. Some bits of her looked metallic, smelled like the metal parts inside Grace. She could go so far away from her human, too, really separating. Taco couldn’t imagine the awfulness of that. But Aurembiax and Grace, together, were less wrong than the horrible being who’d been trying to kill Dani. The thing full of metal, shaped like a man, but with no daemon. No soul. Pugsley called it a Terminator.

While the lizard and the eagle faced off, Taco dared to sniff at Grace. Her flesh smelled hot, pained, unhappy. Taco heard her make a small noise. Aurembiax screamed at Pugsley again. After a decided hiss, the lizard rolled off the bed. From the floor, he said, “I don’t get paid enough for this.”

The humans were talking, too. Dani said, “I want something for Grace to eat when she wakes up. She wanted water, before. When she went unconscious.”

Sarah said, “There’s a store down the road. Get me some potato chips, will you? I need an eleventh bag for my phone.”

Dani edged towards the door, eyes on Grace. Taco turned to Pugsley, appealing with a glance. Pugsley grumped, “I’ll watch her. Get the good chips for Mom. Sour cream chives.” Pugsley scuttled to Sarah, slid up onto her shoulder. When Sarah turned away from Grace, he stayed watching. Taco slid out beside Dani. He trembled when Aurembiax slid out with them, too. They heard the door lock after them.

Aurembiax flew up, circled overhead, then zoomed back down, beside Taco. She was a big, splendid daemon, the kind Taco didn’t see much. In the sun, most of her feathers were tawny brown. Her breast feathers were dappled golden-beige. A few bits of her were dull silver: two claws, a feather here and there, the rim of one eye. That eye glowed green with a fragment of machine. Beautiful, but frightening. “Why are you coming with us?”

“To protect you,” said Aurembiax.

“But – your human – how can you separate?” It didn’t seem right, such a beautiful daemon hopping in the dust beside Taco. He paused. “You can ride on my back, if you want. Then we can talk.”

Dani wasn’t walking fast. First, she looked back at the motel. Then, she took out her wallet, counted her cash. There was time for Aurembiax to leap up onto Taco’s shoulders. The bird was substantial, but not too heavy. In fact, her weight was pleasant. Taco kept up easily with Dani’s thoughtful amble.

As they paced, Aurembiax gave a pleased croak, then told her tale. “When Grace became an Augment...it did something. To both of us. She senses so much more, now.”

“Some worlds have more Dust, more life force. Where there’s more Dust, our people can see us. Others have less. They’re like this world – more technology, people who don’t see. History’s different in every world. Our world, our time...we lost control of technology, machines. Fighting back, we stole from the Machines. We saw their technology differently. The Machines didn’t know their time gate could be a subtle gate, too, opening different worlds.”

This was a lot to take in, but Taco was quick-minded. “Did you come from another world or another time?”

Aurembiax said, voice cool, “It doesn’t matter. He's here and she’s here. The Rev-9 and your Dani. Our enemy and our mission. We’ll fight for her and we’ll fight against him until we die.” 

Taco put his ears back and whimpered.

They were at the convenience store. Inside, it was clean, air conditioned. Aurembiax dismounted to perch on a soda display. That made it easier for Taco to trot at Dani’s heels. She went up and down an aisle, then paused in front of the wall of drinks. But she wasn’t looking at them, or choosing anything. Taco felt Dani flooded with how normal this place was, compared everything that had happened.

Dani whispered, as if to herself, “These crazy people – their guns – she threw my _phone_ away – am I the one who’s gone crazy?” Two hot tears ran down her cheeks. Then, she murmured, “Diego,” and began to really cry.

“No, no!” Taco pressed up against Dani’s knee, felt her terrible pain. Aurembiax trilled again. Taco glanced up, tail between his legs. He said, “She's thinking about running away. Maybe – maybe we should. We don’t want to hurt anybody else.”

Aurembiax said, “Please don’t. We love her.” 

Taco’s ears and tail sailed upright. “Love her?”

With three hops, Aurembiax was beside Taco. “Grace won’t say so. But we do. Like you love her, too.”

Taco blinked. “I love her because I’m – I’m hers.”

Aurembiax turned her amber eye to Taco. “We are hers as well. She’s going to help us. Save us. That means you’ll save us, too. I settled like this because Grace wanted to be strong for Dani.”

The dog circled the eagle. “You knew us before! In your world!” Behind him, Dani sniffed, started to mop up her tears with a napkin from the snack bar.

Aurembiax hunched over, with a shudder. “Grace doesn’t want to say a lot about that. It’s terrible to be here. The time-gate – it’s like a subtle knife – but it cuts those who go through it as well as time. Then, here, it’s all too beautiful...” When she widened her amber eye, it flashed, half-mad.

The bird-daemon had stopped making sense to Taco, but he could tell she was suffering. He nudged her side gently, licked one wing. She tasted a little metallic. Aurembiax shook herself. When she resettled, her feathers were smoother.

Taco nuzzled the eagle again. “I wish we were home. You’d really like it there. There’s light all day and all night so you could fly whenever you wanted. Grace could stay with Dani. You could have a nest on Dani’s windowsill and swoop down between the buildings.” But they could never go back. No Diego and his sweet speckled-bitch daemon, Taquita, no more busy factory, no more quiet mornings in the market. He couldn’t help whining in misery.

At that, Aurembiax nibbled behind Taco’s ears. Taco froze, pinned with delight. Aurembiax’s nips felt so wonderful, the most heavenly thing, soothing and enlivening at the same time. When she stopped, her amber beak left the feel of a spark behind, a little static electricity.

“I’m not sorry. It’s what we have to do. Save you and Dani from the Machines, so you can start the Resistance.”

Taco asked, “Does Dani see me, in your future? Can we talk to each other? That would be heaven!"

“The Republic of Heaven. It could be...if we win.” Aurembiax blinked, slowly. “Somebody else is helping you, already. Letting Sarah and that filthy lizard know when the time gate opens. We’re together for a reason. Dust to Dust. Life to life.”

Dani had an iced coffee, now, and a full handful of napkins. She rolled the cold bottle against her hot face, paced back and forth between sips.

Revived, Taco paced along with her. He touched his nose to her knee. “Dani. Can we help them? I know it’s different. They’re all so strange. That machine is horrible. I’m scared. But – they love us. They want to help us. You’re not alone. You won’t ever be, if the future comes right.”

Dani put her iced coffee bottle in the trash and wiped her face. To herself, she said, “They saved my life. They need help, too. I can do this. I will do this.” 

She went back down an aisle for three bags: chips, dried fruit, and beef jerky. Taco stayed close. After paying, she retraced her path, returning to the motel, at a faster clip. Taco dashed at her heels. Aurembiax flew above, shielding Dani with her shadow.

Suddenly Aurembiax cried out. “Grace! Grace is awake!” In one great swoop, she spiraled up and down. Taco jumped for joy, saluting her with a howl, and began to run. Dani did, too.

**Author's Note:**

> In this fic Terminator is happening in, by HDM standards, Will and Mary’s world - a world very close to ours, with technology and humans not usually seeing daemons in our 'present'. Sorry, Will!


End file.
